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March 28, 2007

Criminally Sexy

"Creole? Really? How fascinating. So is there still that whole voodoo thing?"

The young waiter from the island of Mauritius stood tongue-tied in the dining room of the Spa Hotel in Kent, England, baffled by the movie star who was focused on his French accent instead of his list of Frenchified entrées—trout millefeuille and tenderloin en croute. He did not understand why his native dialect made her think of black magic, Mardi Gras, and dolls with pins.

"You know, voodoo? Witchcraft? Is that part of the culture?" Her voice lowered coaxingly. "You can tell us."

Scarlett Johansson has a habit of talking forcefully and teasingly to strangers, charging past her own youth and soft, delectable looks to establish a beachhead of individuality. The waiter, the driver, an autograph-seeking fan, a man giving directions on the street…all are treated with the same kind of good-natured raillery.

It's a way of putting the world on notice that the 22-year-old is an adult, not a kid; an experienced actress, not a starlet; a born-and-bred New Yorker, not a Beverly Hills bimbo. In life, and increasingly in movies, Johansson is not the ingenue; she is the star. Her voluptuous looks and famously full lips are almost defiant in a culture that fetishizes the slighter silhouettes of Keira Knightley, Kirsten Dunst, and Natalie Portman. Woody Allen, who directed her in Match Point and Scoop, describes her as "criminally sexy." When asked in an E-mail if she could be compared to any movie stars of yore, the director replied, "She is unlike anyone who has come before her,
and while she is a much stronger actress in every way, there is a tiny bit of Marilyn Monroe in her zoftig humidity."

"Scarlett Letters" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the April 2006 issue of Vogue.